Planned Parenthood Received $1.6 Billion of Our Tax Dollars to Promote Its Abortion Agenda

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 26, 2021   |   12:49PM   |   Washington, DC

A new GAO report presents a very disturbing picture of how America’s biggest abortion business receives a massive amount of taxpayer funding to further its abortion agenda.

In 2019, pro-life Reps. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Pete Olson (R-TX), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led over 120 House and Senate Members in a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting data on federal taxpayer dollars received by pro-abortion groups. Last week, the GAO issued the report that covers a three year period, from fiscal years 2016-2018.

Requested by pro-life members of Congress to expose how pervasive its taxpayer funding is, the GAO report indicates pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Marie Stopes International (MSI) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) received a massive amount of American tax dollars.

In total, the pro-abortion groups received $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars over the three-year period.

The period covers the last year of the Obama administration and the first two years of the Trump administration. While President Obama pushed abortion funding and tax funding of pro-abortion groups to the largest extent possible, President Donald Trump immediately took efforts to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood’s international affiliate, which opted out of funding programs because it refused to abide by Trump’s pro-life rules requiring it to stop promoting and performing abortions.

As a result, a future GAO report covering later Trump years should show IPPF and MSI losing that revenue stream. That would lower the total amount of taxpayer funds going to those pro-abortion groups by over $107 million.

Planned Parenthood funding continues despite the best efforts of pro-life advocates.

President Trump cut Planned Parenthood domestic funding in multiple areas — although Planned Parenthood took each funding cut to court with some success. While he could cut some funding, the overwhelming revenue stream for Planned Parenthood comes from funds via Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP that Congress controls. When Republicans ran the House they passed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood but Democrats in the Senate killed it via a filibuster.

With Democrats running the House and Senate and pro-abortion Joe Biden in the White House, Planned Parenthood funding is expected to expand further.

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Looking more closely at the GAO report, here’s a breakdown of where the $1.8 billion in funding for pro-abortion groups went.

Planned Parenthood (PPFA) from 2016-2018:

  • Received a total of $1.6 billion federal taxpayer dollars (averaging $533 million per year) including:
    • $304 million from grants and cooperative agreements
    • $1.3 billion from Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP (this accounts for 81% of all federal funds received)
  • The 6 PPFA affiliates that received the most funding included:
    • Planned Parenthood Mar Monte
    • Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties
    • Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest
    • Planned Parenthood Los Angeles
    • Planned Parenthood Northern California
    • Planned Parenthood of New York City
  • 21 out of about 50 total PPFA affiliates received at least $21 million federal taxpayer dollars

International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) from 2016-2018:

  • Received a total of $20.96 million federal taxpayer dollars
  • Reported expending a total of $15.55 million federal taxpayer dollars. 95% of these expenditures went toward supporting international family planning organizations.

Marie Stopes International (MSI) from 2016-2018*:

  • Received a total of $86.5 million federal taxpayer dollars
  • Reported expending a total of $84.8 million federal taxpayer dollars

Four Regional Domestic Abortion Providers from 2016-2018:

  • Received a total of $124.48 million federal taxpayer dollars from Medicaid and CHIP

The pro-life members of Congress who requested the report were saddened to see so much taxpayer funding going to abortion businesses that kill unborn babies.

“This GAO report shows a disturbing and shameful trend where our federal government spends its taxpayer money funding and subsidizing Planned Parenthood and other abortion giants, all while destroying human dignity with every life lost,” Rep. Hartzler said.“We must end this horrific misuse of taxpayer funds, work to divert the $1.8 billion away from pro-abortion groups, and find real, equitable opportunities benefiting women and children that the American people actually support.”

“At my request, the Government Accountability Office provided federal funding amounts for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood over the course of three years,” Sen. Blackburn said. “It is unconscionable that taxpayer money inevitably finds its way to abortion providers that promote the killing of unborn children. Such misappropriation is an atrocity and exposes the critical need to promote the pro-life agenda.”

“The findings of the GAO report are disgraceful: large abortion corporations received a whopping $1.8 billion in federal taxpayer dollars in just 3 years,” Rep. Smith said. “This taxpayer funding is subsidizing an entire industry that is committed to performing and promoting the killing of unborn children.  Recent national polling reaffirms that 60% of Americans do not want their tax dollars subsidizing abortion. The American people are not fooled by accounting tricks; they know that, when the government forks over $1.8 billion to the abortion industry, taxpayers are in essence subsidizing its whole business. Taxpayer dollars should be used to provide genuine, life-affirming health care, not used to pad the budgets of organizations that are using other funds to kill unborn children.”